History is usually written by the winners. Michela Wrong believes that the Eritreans will become winners eventually. Until then, she will serve as the spokesperson for those without loud voices.

Using one pivotal year as a means of teaching about World War II is a fascinating concept. Winston Groom's writing is approachable, at times lyrical.

During a road trip across the United States to interview wrongly convicted defendants, authors Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen learned new lessons about malfunctions in America's criminal justice system.

A superb biography of Charles Ponzi demonstrates, once again, that truth is often stranger than the strangest fiction.

Lance Morrow is determined to demonstrate how the varied geographic and socioeconomic upbringings of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon led to the development of their outsized, flawed, ultimately dominant characters.

Breaking news about the Enron does not seem to be Kurt Eichenwald's point. Rather, his point is to offer a comprehensive, compellingly written narrative that employs novelistic techniques while never straying from the facts.

Jack El-Hai stumbled across the saga of Walter J. Freeman, a doctor who performed thousands of lobotomies without warning patients or their loved ones of the adverse consequences of the operation.

The scandal permeating Sarah Churchwell's study is that most previous Monroe biographers knew they were publishing falsehoods as facts, or ought to have known.

T.R. Reid takes readers into many of the European countries, showing, for example, how they have managed to provide universal health care and so many other amenities while approximately 45 million Americans go without coverage in what can only be called a national disgrace.

The latest book by Joseph J. Ellis--author of acclaimed books about Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and other nation builders--provides fresh understanding of a seemingly stilted, iconic figure.

Historian Geoffrey R. Stone builds his book around what he says are the only six episodes during the life of the United States--until the newly begun century--in which the federal bureaucracy "has attempted to punish individuals for criticizing government officials or policies."

A.J. Jacobs, who writes about his quest to read an entire encyclopedia, found himself stunned over and over at the breadth and depth of his ignorance when compared to the sweep of information available in the 32-volume set.

The revelations concerning Abu Ghraib by Seymour Hersh have never been told in such horrifying, credible detail.

Kitty Kelley's book surprisingly contains new information for lots of readers, especially those who have paid no attention to the Bush and Walker family trees.

Lawyer-novelist Tim Junkin's book explains everything that went wrong to place an innocent man on Death Row for a crime he knew nothing about.

All writers (and their editors), whatever their thinking about fact-checkers, will almost certainly carry away a more nuanced view after reading Sarah Harrison Smith's account of life in the fact-checking lane.

"Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-1934" rarely loses sight of overarching themes, most prominently how the FBI "evolved from an overmatched band of amateurish agents without firearms or law-enforcement experience into the professional crime-fighting machine of lore."